A Holt New World
by kgmohror
Summary: Set immediately after "Steele At It." Now that the Cannes Agreement is in place, how will Laura manage her conflicting feelings toward the exasperating Mr. Steele?


**A Holt New World**

_Set immediately after season 2's "Steele At It"_

For once Laura was glad of the disparity between her and Mr. Steele's public profiles. Well, it did still gall her a bit that he would spend the next 13 hours being doted on by oversexed flygirls in the first-class cabin, while she and Mildred endured the cramped quarters in coach. But at least it would put some distance between her and her partner. She needed that right now.

Coping with Mildred's prodding for information about the night that wasn't would be another problem. After all her bravado with the older woman about the seduction she planned, how could Laura admit how it all went south. God knows it was humiliating enough living through it the first time. She'd made a fool of herself. "How convenient! One can order breakfast without leaving bed." Was there ever a lamer come-on that that? To throw herself at him like a cat in heat, and then to find another woman in his room – in his arms!

Laura felt a hot flush in her face and quickly fanned herself with her ticket; she had no intention of letting Steele see her mortification. Actually, it was beginning to look as if he wouldn't be seeing her at all – where the hell was the man? As the boarding queue edged another couple of steps forward, Laura scanned the terminal. First class and business had boarded 20 minutes ago, and even the line for the rabble in the cheap seats had dwindled to Laura, Mildred and a handful of others. If Mr. Steele didn't show up soon …

"Miss Holt, I'm really worried about Mr. Steele," Mildred said over her shoulder. "I heard the man at the desk say they'd be closing the gate in five minutes. Where can he be?"

"Don't fret, Mildred," Laura said with more confidence than she felt. "You know Mr. Steele likes to make an entrance. I'm sure he'll be along any second now."

She adjusted the strap of her carry-on and cast another look around. Despite her assurances to Mildred, Laura began to feel her pulse race and a knot of anxiety form in her gut. When Mr. Steele had sent her and Mildred off in a cab this morning, promising to join them at the airport after a last goodbye to Henri and Joelle, Laura was uneasy. But what could she say? It was she who had decreed, only last night, that their lives would henceforth be separate, at least outside the office.

She recalled his words last night on the hotel balcony: "Does Remington Steele return to Los Angeles, or disappear back into the mists of night again?" Even though they had agreed to continue their professional partnership … what if he had changed his mind? Or maybe something had happened. An accident, or another of his old associates or enemies had crawled out of the woodwork, or – a sudden thought hit her. Had he been stopped at security? Laura had expressed concern about his dodgy passport, but Mr. Steele proclaimed supreme confidence in his ability to talk his way through any "misunderstandings." Still, Laura wondered if two years of comfortable living had softened his special skills. He'd certainly been careless in discarding the black neck cloth he used in the theft of the Habsburg dagger.

"Maybe I'll just head back toward the ticket counter …" Laura began, just as Mr. Steele dashed into view.

"Boss! You made it!" Mildred exclaimed, giving him a relieved hug.

"Of course, Mildred," Steele answered. "You know how eager I am to get back to work." He gave Laura an arch look.

"Cut it a bit close, didn't you?" Laura said sharply.

"I was slightly detained at check-in. The agent happened to mention the seat next to mine was empty, so I took the liberty of securing an upgrade for-" He began to hand a boarding pass to Laura, but she deftly deflected it Mildred's way.

"How thoughtful of you, Mr. Steele, to remember it's Mildred's birthday next week!" Laura said. "What a wonderful treat it will be for her to fly first-class next to you all the way home!"

Steele looked from Laura to Mildred and back again. "Oh. Ah …" he stammered.

"Now Miss Holt, I couldn't do that," Mildred protested. "I'm sure the boss would much rate sit next to you." She gave Laura a meaningful look.

"Don't be silly, Mildred," Laura insisted, pressing the ticket into her hand. "Mr. Steele is always delighted to spend quality time with you. Aren't you, Mr. Steele?"

"You know me so well, Miss Holt," Steele answered, smiling at the secretary while narrowing his eyes at Laura. He offered Mildred his arm as they stepped onto the gangway. At the door to the plane, the cabin steward engaged Mildred in a bit of small talk, allowing Steele to drop back and step and whisper in Laura's ear. "Very generous of you, Laura, but I was rather hoping to spend this quality time with you."

"I can't think why, Mr. Steele," she whispered back. "Surely we covered all there was to say last night. And we're not on the clock now." She handed the steward her ticket and gave Steele a tight-lipped smile. "Enjoy your flight … partner."

Moments later Laura was settled in a window seat just behind the left wing. To her relief, her seatmates were a businessman type already engrossed in the latest issue of Forbes and an older woman preoccupied with a gaggle of children across the aisle, presumably her grandkids. Without having to make idle chit chat with her companions, Laura would have plenty of time to think. And she needed it.

As the stewardess ran through the familiar pantomime of safety procedures at the front of the cabin (Laura wondered if Mr. Steele's attendant was this pretty), Laura learned back in her seat and stared out at the tarmac below. Au revoir, France. It was hardly the departure she'd imagined two days ago when she'd decided it was time for her and Mr. Steele to "cross that line." She'd believed she would be returning to L.A. as his lover; instead, they had regressed to simply associates.

The plane's sudden acceleration pushed Laura back in her seat. They'd been cleared for take-off. Laura smiled at the irony. She'd finally cleared their relationship for take-off, only to discover Mr. Steele was more interested in determining who was in the cockpit!

The jet's wheels lifted from the runway and the plane shot upward at a steep angle. Laura gripped the armrests on both sides of her; she wasn't fond of flying, of trusting her life to a complete stranger 30,000 feet above solid ground. They were passing through some turbulence, but Laura resisted the impulse to see that as a metaphor for her and Steele's relationship, too. Instead, she distracted herself by wondering how Mr. Steele was getting on with Mildred. She knew he loved their good-hearted receptionist as much as she did, but Ms. Krebs could be a force to be reckoned with. Laura suspected Mildred would be pumping Mr. Steele for the sort of juicy details of their relationship that Laura herself would have had to contend with. How much would the enigmatic former grifter be willing to disclose?

Above the clouds now, the jet slanted sharply as it banked into a left turn. It was slightly disorienting to see the cabin so far off level, the column of seats across the aisle looming high over her own position. It might almost be described as … a lopsided lean.

Recalling that phrase set Laura's teeth on edge all over again. The man had some nerve, claiming he'd been treated unfairly. Why, the very fact that she referred to him as her partner was proof of the status she afforded him. Murphy had never presumed to suggest he was an equal in the agency, and he had a hell of a lot more experience than Mr. Steele. No, Murphy understood that the agency was hers, more important and dear to her than a mountain of royal lavulite. Yet this Continental con man thought that just because the name on the office door matched the one on the business cards in his wallet, he was entitled to a 50-50 stake in her business?

And all that bluster about her having to be in control of their personal relationship as well. All right, maybe it was presumptuous of her to assume that he'd leap on the opportunity to leap on her. But after two years of finagling to engineer just such a scenario himself, he could hardly claim to be uninterested.

Laura closed her eyes, willing the painful memory away. She knew she had handled it clumsily. Laura had never been comfortable resorting to feminine wiles, though it was an occasional part of her work. Forthright by nature, she'd always considered the convoluted dance of seduction deceptive at best and ridiculous at worst. Unfortunately, her recent foray onto the dance floor skewed sharply to the ridiculous.

It hadn't helped that her not-so-smooth moves were pressured by a deadline. With the end of the glee club reunion tour looming, they would soon be back in L.A., surrounded by all the reasons she hadn't let this happen before. Laura knew that if she was going to find the courage to give herself to Mr. Steele, it would have to be during this brief, exotic interlude in the usually grounded and commonsense rhythm of her life.

And so she had planned it all out, like one of the undercover scenarios they used in their case work. And it wasn't so different, after all; she would be playing a role, this time of the confident, liberated woman who wasn't at all afraid that she might end up alone and broken. If she needed to feel in charge of this pivotal moment, who could blame her? It was, after all, almost the only area of her life that she still had some control over, despite what Mr. Steele might insist.

He'd taken the name she had so carefully crafted to project just the right image – taken it and made it his own. Laura found she could no longer summon up the fantasy of the Steele she had created; her formerly crystal clear catalog of "Remington Steele's" attributes had blurred into the reality of the man sitting 15 rows ahead of her. He had become Steele, even to her.

And he had the spotlight, the prestige – which bothered her more than she cared to admit – and the credit for solving their cases … which, frankly, bothered her a great deal. He had the upscale apartment, the classic automobile, the imported suits, the Dom Perignon in his hotel room. All that didn't matter; Laura had never coveted a luxury lifestyle.

But it was his claim on things far more personal that scared her.

He had her trust, despite every instinct that told her he shouldn't … even after this whole Habsburg dagger debacle, she was still willing to work with him, to stake the agency's and her own reputation on that irrational belief.

And there was one other thing that Mr. Steele had taken from her.

He had her heart.

She was too honest to try to convince herself that she didn't love him. How long? Since he'd comforted her the night her house was destroyed? Since he saved her life, hanging from a girder outside the Federal Reserve Bank? Since he'd walked into her office, calling himself Ben Pearson? It didn't matter. It only mattered that he had made himself the most important thing in her world, and she feared there wasn't a damn thing she could do about it.

Did she even want to?

She had realized, after learning about his involvement in the theft of the dagger, that the answer was … yes. Because as enjoyable, as intoxicating, as these past months had been, they had also been terrifying. Behind every kiss, every slow dance, every shared smile, there was a lurking question: Is this the last? She hated feeling that way, always off balance, always insecure. And she hated how it made her act. Shrill. Jealous. Angry. Mr. Steele had kept his involvement in the Habsburg dagger caper from her because, he said, he knew she would have stopped him. And the truth was, he was right.

She admired his loyalty to his friends, his selfless courage. But she wouldn't have risked him being drawn back into that life, lured by friendship or excitement or the sparkle of precious gems in his hand. She would have done anything in her power to prevent those things from taking him away … from her. And in so doing, she would be destroying the essence of who he was, the very things that made her care so deeply in the first place. How could she do that to him? To herself?

And so she had concocted this new plan: They would be colleagues -friends, even. But never lovers. Their lives would diverge at the stroke of 5:00 pm. It would all be neat, orderly and professional. Never mind that the kiss he gave her on the deck of the Beau Geste made her forget, if only for a moment, that anything in the world existed besides him. And she would find a way to disregard the flutter she felt when he flashed that smile or turned his blue, blue eyes to hers. It would be hard. _Hard._ But it was the only way. Over time, surely it would become easier. She would forget what it felt like to be in his arms, no longer suffer the sweet ache of wanting to be close to him, learn to be just Laura again.

Sighing, she pulled the screen down over the window and closed her eyes. She needed sleep. Tomorrow it would begin, this new way of living with Remington Steele. And she knew she'd need every ounce of her strength to make it work. She only hoped it would be enough.


End file.
